


Heroic Hearts

by bunn



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Beleriand, First Age, Fluff, Heroes, Hithlum, M/M, Troll - Freeform, with just a hint of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 11:39:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15363837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunn/pseuds/bunn
Summary: Maedhros makes his first visit back to Hithlum after leaving for the March of Maedhros. Fingon offers a gift.





	Heroic Hearts

The grass blew long across Ard-galen, dyed golden in the evening light. The falling sun was sinking into the long blue shadow of the mountains in the west. A thin pale mist was rising from the tawny mass of the Fens of Serech, and it almost hid the greater, more distant mountains in the distant shadowed North. 

But Maedhros, riding west with a strong and well-armed company, was not looking North, towards the three massive peaks of Thangorodrim. 

Was definitely not wondering if, from here in the right light, you would be able to see a certain cliff high on the mountainside, defended by cliffs and walls, where a steel ring was anchored immovably to the rock. 

He was not even wondering if there might still be another ambush waiting for them before they reached the safety of the hills. 

Maedhros was looking only ahead. And there in the distance, faintly to be seen against the golden line of the foothills of the Ered Wethrin, the evening sun caught on shining spear-heads and helmet-crests, and now he could see horses riding south and east. 

One horse in particular, white and grey as a cloud before the storm, stepping high and light ahead of the rest, and on his back, a rider with the faintest hint of gold visible in the dark braids showing under his war-helm. 

*****

They were sitting side by side on Fingon’s bed in Barad Eithel, after far too long apart. 

“They’re fading,” Fingon said smiling, once he had pulled off Maedhros’s shirt, running his fingers across his back. It had been torn and knotted with old scars, last time he had seen it. It was much smoother now, with only a tracery of faint pale silvery marks spread across the long muscles. 

“Are they? Good.” Maedhros said, turning his head exaggeratedly as if trying to see his own back, to make Fingon laugh. 

“And the hair has come back properly, too.” Fingon ran hands up through long shining dark red hair that was almost as luxuriant now as it had ever been. 

“Soon,” Maedhros told him, very solemnly, “Nobody will be able to tell that I was foolish enough to get captured at all. A great relief to my pride. Oh, no. Wait.” He prodded Fingon lightly in the stomach with his handless right arm. “I think this might still give it away.”

Fingon took his hands out of Maedhros’s hair and took his forearm instead. “It doesn’t still hurt?” he asked, more seriously. 

“No.” Maedhros grinned at him, pulled the arm away and wrapped it tightly around Fingon’s waist instead. “It was very skillfully done. If I ever need any further body parts removed, I shall certainly come to you...” 

“Oh, shut up, you fool!” Fingon leant back into his embrace, and kissed him. Maedhros kissed back enthusiastically, and then tried to push him over backwards, but Fingon was having none of that and they wrestled for a moment, a fierce laughing tussle, almost as they might have done in the lost light of Valinor. 

Almost. There was less innocence as they touched each other’s bodies than once there had been, and that was a fine thing, a very fine and joyful thing, Maedhros thought as he managed to pin Fingon’s two hands with his one. Probably Fingon was letting him do it, but he was struggling hard enough, his eyes bright and laughing and his mouth pushing up to steal a kiss, that Maedhros did not need to feel his missing hand too much of a disadvantage. 

There was less innocence in a number of other ways, too, and that was not so good. The safest thing was not to speak of it. 

He abandoned the struggle to hold onto Fingon’s hands, and instead wrapped his handless arm around Fingon’s waist and rolled, so that Fingon’s strong body ended up sprawled on top of him. 

“So you are all right. You’re strong enough, at any rate.” Fingon said, pulling his knees up to sit astride, as Maedhros lay back and put his arms behind his head to admire Fingon sitting above him. 

He could feel concern echoing through Fingon’s mind, but then, Fingon could certainly see in his mind some of the things that Maedhros had made a practice of carefully not thinking about. Things he was not going to allow any further power over him. 

“I have a good many other things to think of,” he told Fingon, to answer the concern without calling up a darkness that would break the joyful moment. “Fortresses, brothers, orcs, cheese, leather, swords, stone, wool, alliances...”

“Alliances?” Fingon’s strong competent hands were running delightfully across his chest.

“You can report to your father the king that you have personally inspected the Eastmarch in the person of its lord, and found it in excellent condition,” he suggested, a little breathlessly. “Ah!” Fingon had run his thumb across a nipple. He was breathing fast, too. 

“Oddly enough, my father was the last person I was thinking of,” Fingon said, and laughed. “I am definitely not planning on making a report. Also, there are parts I haven’t inspected yet. You know I like to do a job properly,” and he ran his hands down Maedhros’s stomach to run a finger inside the waistband of his breeches and then reached further in. As Maedhros gasped again and pushed up against him, he began to undo the laces. 

“I’ve missed this,” Maedhros told him, running his hand up Fingon’s side under the shirt, to pull the linen up over his shoulder, enjoying the feeling of warm muscular skin under his fingers. “I’ve missed you.” 

Fingon’s hands stopped moving, and his eyes met Maedhros’s. “I’m glad to hear it,” he said wryly. “It’s bad enough that you went charging off to Middle-earth without me, and then off to the Eastmarch with your brothers. At least you miss me.” 

“Always, forever, and from the bottom of my heart,” Maedhros assured him. “I love you. I would not have left you if it were my choice. And now I have you all to myself, for once, with nothing in the way except this annoying shirt.” He tugged at it, frustrated.

“Good,” Fingon said seriously. “I hoped that was it, but I wanted to hear you say it out loud.”

Maedhros took his hand away. “I love you, I missed you, and I would not leave you again, except that I must,” he said. “I’ll say it before your father and all his lords, I’ll summon all six brothers and say it in front of them, I’ll say it again, as many times as you like, whether we win this war...”

“Which we will.”

“... or whether it stretches on for a thousand thousand years, and it will be just as true the last time I say it as it is now.”

Fingon grinned deliberately at him. “Save your breath,” he said, pulled the shirt off over his head and leant down for a kiss. “You’re going to need it.” 

*******

Seven days later, Maedhros had made his obeisance, presented his report and taken counsel with the High King — still a little awkward, that, though all of them were getting used to it now — and Fingon, setting out from the new fortress of Barad Eithel on patrol along the Ered Wethrin, had insisted that Maedhros should come too. Now they were sitting on a steep grassy slope looking down at a sharp grey cliff that ended in shadow, and the low arch of a natural cave. 

“It only comes out at night, and a moonless night too, for preference,” Fingon said quietly, as they watched the cave in the gathering dusk. “The Moon doesn’t turn them to stone as the Sun does, but they still don’t like him very much.”

“Are there many cave-trolls in the Ered Wethrin?” Maedhros asked, almost under his breath. 

“Not as many as there were,” Fingon told him with a fierce smile. “We’ve been rooting them out as we find them. They’re a menace: you can’t wall them out and they’ll be quiet for months then attack at the dark of night. But when I knew you were coming, I thought I’d save one for you.”

“A princely gift!” Maedhros said laughing under his breath, quietly delighted that Fingon could be confident that Maedhros with only one hand could be relied upon in hunting a troll. 

Could be relied upon in general, in fact. 

“Of course you can,” Fingon said absently. His thought was focussed on the cave and what might come out of it, but behind the thought was a warmth of confidence strong enough to lean on. He quietly drew his sword, and beside him, Maedhros did the same, as along the ridge, Fingon’s guard spread out, almost invisible in the darkness even to elf-eyes. 

The evening was darkening to a night with few stars, for Morgoth had sent forth his vapours from Thangorodrim, and the Northern sky was dark with them. 

Something was moving beside the cave, a darkness darker than the night, taller and broader than any elf. Fingon nudged Maedhros wordlessly in the ribs and began to move slowly and silently as the faint breath of the night-breeze across the grassy slope, down into the valley. Maedhros, sword in hand, followed like a shadow. 

The troll was not quiet. It thumped through the grass, moving heavily on all fours, stomping down with its great hands and then swinging the shorter legs forward. It was enormous: at least three times Maedhros’s height, he saw as they came closer. It had a foul stench, rot and filth, and as it saw them at last and turned, its small eyes glinted red. 

The troll’s mighty hand swung out like a club, and Maedhros ducked under it then caught the hand a glancing blow on the wrist. Fingon had run past it but had missed his stroke as the troll stepped back. The Elves were faster, but the troll would only need to land one blow to cripple or kill its opponents. 

Fingon dashed in to strike at the troll’s leg, and Maedhros winced at the sound the blade made as it hit, and hoped Fingon’s edge had not been damaged. He slid sideways and stabbed at the belly instead, a swift punching blow with the tip, and had to wrench the blade out again as he moved. The troll bellowed, and Maedhros felt the wind of its fist moving catch at his hair as he retreated. 

Fingon was behind the troll now, and as it turned to follow Maedhros and leant forward to take another swing at him, he jumped forward, ran up its back and sank his sword deep into the base of the troll’s skull.

Maedhros leaped back as the troll toppled forward and fell as heavily as a landslide. 

“Sorry!” Fingon said cheerfully, as he pulled his sword free and began to wipe it clean. “I was going to save it for you, but I saw it leaning forward like a stair in front of me, and I just couldn’t resist.” 

Maedhros laughed and wiped his own sword. “What is love if we cannot share our gifts?” he asked, and saw Fingon’s face in the faint starlight brighten, as he laughed back.


End file.
